What is it to know?

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What in your view happens when senses are in error and mistakes are made?

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My view is that an error or mistake was made. But also that its philosophically unimportant.What I don't really get is why it is important that our perception is imperfect. I concede that it is true that our sensory experience is synthetic, but in large part this does not matter much. That is, the desk at which I am presently sitting is still identifiable as a desk, reliably. So, it is true that I never see the whole desk at one moment but this does not imply any doubt as to the desks desk-ness nor its reality.What I don't understand is why the imperfection of our senses is so so significant. Why is there an "essence" of a thing that is other that the thing as we see it, experience it? Would it be different if I were a leopard and had no colour vision at all?What does it matter if some kinds of poison are undetectable by us? Is there a reason for thinking we should be able to detect it? so people get killed by poisonous things that are tasteless and odourless - why does that matter?

Well there is no reason for you to be interested it this subject and it doesn't have to matter to you. Obviously you can live in the world as represented by your perceptions.Neither can I explicate why I am interested in this. The questions are occurring to me and I am examing them as best I can.lfen

Fair enough. It just all reminds me of talking to a christian once, and I asked him where he saw the hand of god in the world, and he said "all around". To me that is not something he is seeing, that is something he is attributing, and there is no good basis for this attribution. This seems to me a very alaogous situation - like all lines of enquiry, we first need to establish whether it is necxessary or fruitful. This one appears neither very necessary nor very fruitful to me.

lfen,(laughing to myself) I really feel like a failure. I still can't understand exactly your position... the terms seem too ambiguous to me. Or maybe your idea is just different from any of mine, and I'm having trouble moving away from my own thought. I'm really sorry about that.But maybe you know me by know; when it comes to this stuff, I'll always give it a go. Let's see... What does "consciousness" refer to here? Does it mean the actual phenomenon of being conscious, the actual experience itself? Or are you talking about the brain processing that gives rise to consciousness?(pausing to think) I can't imagine what 'consciousness' is, without content. Actually, I meant to write this next thought experiment to you, but forgot. Maybe it's relevant now.Can you imagine what it might be like to be blind? Maybe not. But let's try anyway. I want you to first imagine being blind. What is it like? Try to describe it.Then I want you to imagine being blind, and deaf. What is that like? Try to describe it. Is it different from being blind?Keep eliminating senses, one by one. Describe it.After you've removed all the senses, what is left? What were the steps that got you there?I'll be interested to hear your response, if you're game.Thanks!
BenP.S. I got some more links for video lectures (MIT). Dude, get Real Player. There's some crazy ass stuff there.

Contracycle,Here's my thoughts... I hope I'm able to add some value this time, and not simply state the same thing over again... It depends on what you mean "real." If you mean that the synthetic experience is in some sense "real"--because it's part of our experience, or because it has some corresponding brain state--then sure, I agree. If you mean it's synthetic but representational (i.e. represents something out in the real world), then I completely disagree. There's a wide philosophical literature on the problems with this kind of representation.Plus, personally, I just don't see the need to postulate that at all. Why make two kinds of real? Stick with the one that's for sure--the synthetic one. There's no point in going further--as we both agree, the differences between the synthetic and the postulated underlying reality are, in most practical applications, the same. That's right. The data supports your position and mine as well; I think that's your point.I simply think it's more parsimonious, with better philosophical explanatory power, and better for conceptual understanding of what "knowledge" ACTUALLY means, to support my position. I'm still unclear on lfen's position. I feel like such a moron... haha Let me try to describe this one again, because I think I chose words poorly.I watched the 2004 Nobel Physics Laurelate talk about his findings. In it he mentioned "Einstein's second law":M = E / c^2Which is related, of course, to "Einstein's first law"E = M * c^2Now wait a minute, right? They're the same. Well, really, they're not, at least not to the human mind (and this has been shown in some studies by Dr. Miriam Basso(c?)k, who I actually interviewed with at the Unversity of Washington).The first one is a statement about mass--mass is derived from something (a very new concept!), while the second is the equation of a bomb. Einstein published the first, even though he is known for the second.So what's my point? My point is, at least in my experience, if you take the position that "reality" is unknowable, then the formulation of the intellectual position itself quickly discards some of what previously seemed to be barriers. You quickly see that our experience is fundamentally no different than any other kind of synthetic model. In other words, our mind runs under the same principles as a scientific model.I find this liberating. For example, the existence of extra dimensions loses it's edge like "no, that's too far from reality." "reality" no longer has to be judged by appearances--because those appearances are completely the property of our own minds. They are only one of many models. Models are judged in only one way--their practical use, and their explanatory power.Maybe this doesn't happen for you. It sure did for me. I respectfully disagree. We are ad-hoc creatures. We have an ad-hoc, unconscious understanding of physics, causation, and many other things. These drive our language, our behavior, everything. This is VERY SEPARATE from our intellectual studies of classical physics, mathematics, epistemology, etc.My position isn't that it's useful to focus on "reality" being a construct of the mind when catching a baseball. There's no need for this kind of THINKING when doing. But if I'm going to describe that situation rigorously, or talk about anything intellectually, then the position of "reality" being a construct of the mind is EXTREMELY useful. Just like you wouldn't talk about relativity when catching the ball, or quantum mechanics. Those are not practically relevant to that situation.I hope this helps you understand the value I see in holding the position in question. Like lfen says, if it doesn't hold value for you... that's OK. But you seem to be interested in why anybody would be interested in the position... so I hope this helped you understand me better.Thanks!
Ben

Ben,the failure is mine and magnified as the demands on my time are increasing right now so I don't spend near enough time on my replies.One of the common Tibetan anagogies is that of consciousness to space, or mind to space or sky. So I've read things like when it rains the sky in not wet, when the sun shines it's not hot. So they see the mind as the emptiness which is neccessary for all the contents to happen in.Of course the question might be can the sky experience itself as itself or only by means of its contents? Franklin Merrel-Wolffe wrote his first book Pathways through to Space and then wrote The Philosophy of Consciousness without an Object.As to myself lack of sight, sound, taste, and smells seems easy to enough to imagine although eyes closed equals blackness with some light but it's the kinesthetic senses that I haven't been able to eliminate. Helen Keller is the classic cases for blind and deaf of course but there is plenty of content.Ken Wilbur claims to have experienced that state of continuing consciousness even in deep sleep. I haven't so I am thinking about this second hand.I now think the problem is that I'm not making enough distinction between science and experience. The Buddhist and Advaitins are talking about changes in function and using analogies. They aren't modeling the brain. I've gotten interested in seeing if neuroscience can help me understand those ancient sources but I've not really figured out how to set that up.And I'm do need a better definition of consciousness and I'm not finding the time right now to do that as the holiday busyness accelerates.Do you know Damasio's distinction between core consciousness and biographical consciousness? He sees core consciousness as prior and supporting biographical conscious. That is someone in a coma is not conscious, and then there are people with brain disfunction either from injury or disease process where the people are consciousness but don't have much of a clue as to who they are but they are aware that they are.And I've run out of time.lfen

I agree that reliability or confidence is a continuum; however, I fail to see how that carries over to the truth... Either I did or did not take a nap. Either you DO or do NOT exist. There MUST be a true and false answer. Of course you can believe that there are multiple realities and anti-realities and that true and false have no meaning -- in which case our discussion based on logic has no meaning. But for me the understanding that there is a distinction between truth and falsehood is hardwired into me. I cannot shake that.Of course people can be mistaken or lie, but the meanings of those words assume there to be some truth that is being covered up. Yes, I've heard of this before. They may have gotten the details wrong, but I bet none of them said they saw and heard nothing. I bet when the angels appeared to the shepherds and said, "Tonight a savior is born," none of them could be convinced they hallucinated just like PY or my friend Micah or Steven or Brother Richardson can be convinced otherwise. And when you supernatural events become so commonplace that they lose the shock factor, it would be fairly easy to recall accurately the details of an experience. Obviously memories and minds can be bent out of shape, but you are being unreasonably biased to conclude that ALL such claims of a supernatural experience are not completely true. Haha... So you are questioning not so much the empistemology and psychology of knowledge, but rather the deeper understanding of knowledge as a part of our existence. Why and what happens when a few clumps of energy and probability get together and 'know' or experience other clumps of energy and probability?Well, I would say that knowing is the result of a soul or consciousness which is an immergent property of intelligence which is in turn an immergent property of the universe which is an immergent property of truth which is the Word which is God. Why? Because God wanted to have some kids. Now do I REALLY know what it is to know, absolutely not.

I spose since our bodies are crafted in three spacial dimensions with the hardware and software preprogrammed to recognize patterns and store information we build neural pathways when we recieve information about distances in our surroundings. That's how it works, but how does such computation become a thing called experience or knowledge, I don't think anyone really knows.

Well put, though I've not gone so far as asked why, just what.lfen

Bencip19 (not that Bencip13 guy who complains about my not getting his name right all the time ) is one of the people working on that.It just came to me that the process is probably a concrete abstraction? An abstraction anyway. For example what does it mean to be 6 ft. tall when you are sitting down? When are are you 6 ft. tall as your spinal discs compress throught out the day. So what is it true someone is 6 ft. tall? It's an abstraction. The question is, is all truth statements about abstraction? Zen might hold that is the case because the concrete is to complex?lfen

... and I don't know your ancient sources well, even though I'm interested to know what they have to say. So we're both in the same boat I don't know Damasio's work much at all, but I took a look the other day at this distinction. It confused me. I'm getting a lot of that these days Can we view neural investigations into consciousness, then, as investigations into the nature and properties of this emptiness which can be filled?Also, have you read Kant? I don't know him well enough to say well... but he writes about the necessary properties of minds like ours. This seems like a similar type of investigation into the properties of the 'underlying emptiness' and being able to predict the ways in which it can be filled.Ben

Hangdawg,Have you answered my question about HOW they saw the demon? I mean did it emit photons, would a camera have photographed it? If not are you claiming direct action of the visual centers of the brain, and if that then how does that differ from hallucinating? Well, I've been burnt quite a few times and the evidence is slim to nothing. I mean the internet is full for reports of aliens, demons, ghosts, etc. but where is the evidence? So I'm biased. I'm not sure how unreasonable it is, though I obviously think it's reasonable enough. I believe you believe your friends. I'll even believe they are sincere. But that doesn't add up to verifying a demon but only to accepting that people experience demons. Well, I'm up late and very tired. later,lfenlfen

Responding to this post, but really it has more to do with your message 26... and please forgive me if I'm repeating myself. I can't remember at this point.Maybe this is along your lines.What is an apple?Well, it's an object, round, maybe red, solid, hopefully kind of shiny and good to look at. And if it has a little stem with a leaf, I'm cool with that too.But this answer can't resolve all of the data. Some people are colorblind. Their apples are not red. Some people are blind. They know the apple only through touch, and sound (maybe of biting). Some people even have problems with motion vision; they do not view the apple as continuous, but more like static pictures updated every couple of seconds. And the prosopagnosiac... they'll notice an apple when it's in the left visual field, but, in some sense, it doesn't even "exist" if it's in the right visual field. People who have trouble with identifying borders might notice that, under certain conditions, the color-fill function of their visual experience causes parts or the whole apple to disappear, to be filled over with a neighboring color, as the borders defining the apple have been missed.The point is, what makes us think that the apple is actually a whole? Through neurological disturbances and examinations of the sensory processing done in normally functioning beings, maybe we can describe the actual experience of an apple in a different way, that will fit with more data. Let's try another answer then.What's an apple? Maybe an apple is a set of co-existing features. It's a set of things that happen in parallel. Color. Border. Location. Motion. Sound. Feel. The set of features are so coincidental, change with such concordance, that all of them together are then viewed as causally connected. In other words, they denote an object. if you threw the apple to me, and it's border moved but color remained in your hand, we would be surprised.Now, does this new articulation help solve any of the previous problems? Well, if an apple is simply a co-existing set of features, then what would it mean if one of those features suddenly didn't operate properly. What if the feature became either dissociated, or non-coexisting, with the others? Or what if it simply operated differently.I would submit that many of the above problems fit into this category (getting lazy to keep going step by step). "What is an apple?" We feel that it is an object, but, as I've tried to indicate above, I think the "more true" answer is that it is really a set of co-existing sensory features.So, back to the original question. What is "knowing" ? The feeling of knowing is when you're able to make a prediction about the world, and your sensory information doesn't conflict with it. You think there's an apple, because those features all work together, and they act as if they're causally connected. OK, there's an apple.Is this getting anywhere? can we use this to ask "what is known?"Ben

Ben,Yes this is something I can grasp and is along the lines I've been thinking.Now I go to another notion. Whorf I believe wrote about the Hopi language that it had no nouns? Fuller said, "I seem to be a verb". The traditional riddle song, "I gave my love a cherry with out a stone" "A cherry when it's blooming hath no stone, a chicken in the egg hath no bone" etc.So what we call an apple is a temporal process. The appling includes budding, flowering, developing, being eaten, or rotting on the ground, etc. The noun apple is applied to that part of the process that is most functional to us, the part of the process where we can eat, or perhaps sell to be eaten, the appling. The apple like every "thing" in the universe is in constant change but at widely different rates i.e. granite is changing but just doing it as a much slower rate than say a bacteria.So this gets back to knowing as a doing and prediction seems very involved in that. Years ago I taught at a preschool that had a couple of apple trees. There was one boy I particularly kept admonishing about eating the green apples. One day I came in to find him with a bad stomach ache. He learned the hard way not to eat unripe apples!Nouns though useful to designate the portion of a process most relevant to our needs/interests can also be decieving. Adjectives help that by marking a "green" apple from a "ripe" one. One thing I would be curious about it to what extent our nervous system "creates" objects and to what extent our language imposes objects on our perceptions.hmmm, it's almost as if objects exist and don't exist. I'm wondering if this is in some way analagous to waves and particles? A photon behaves sometimes as a wave sometimes as a particle. An apple is a verb that is sometimes a noun?I'll wait to hear if this line of examination interests you.lfen

Ben,I think at present the investigation, if you mean neural science, is more on the contents and processing of the contents. That makes sense to me that the content processing will be examined until it disappears and then maybe the emptiness will be discovered. Pure speculation on my part of course. I'd be interested in what you found confusing. Damasio is a neurologist I believe and so he is working from criterion developed in assessing patients with brain damage and he sees different brain areas being involved in the functions of core and autobiographical consciousness. The other implication is that core conscousness is primitive, or prior to autobiographical consciousness and autobiographical consciousness, I believe, then is dependent on core consciousness but not vice versa.As to " the nature and properties of this emptiness which can be filled?" it does sound a little funny to be talking of properties of emptiness doesn't it? But Buddhist thinkers talk about the properties of the Void.lfen